This incredible story happened in January 2015, and in the spring of 2019, 20th Century Fox is releasing the movie "Breakthrough" based on the event.
14-year-old teenager John Smith fell under the ice on the lake and when he was pulled out, he did not show signs of life for almost an hour. Pulse and breathing were absent, and they tried to resuscitate the teenager for a long time and unsuccessfully.
His mother all this time did not stop praying for John's salvation. And when the miracle finally happened, she was sure that it was her prayers that helped.
Breakthrough movie poster.
On January 19, 2015, 14-year-old John Smith played ice hockey with friends on frozen Lake St. Louis, Missouri. Suddenly the ice fell under his feet and the boy fell into deep black water.
They pulled him out only 15 minutes later, and even then he was apparently dead. Pulse and respiration were also absent. Rescuers and firefighters who had arrived in time by that time began to reanimate him, but John did not wake up.
The child was taken to the hospital and all this time the resuscitation continued. But even after 45 minutes, John was still in a state of clinical death and cardiopulmonary resuscitation was interrupted, considering the boy dead.
Joyce and her husband Brian are not John's parents. They adopted him in Guatemala, where Brian worked as a volunteer in social services when he was 5 months old. By that time, the couple already had two adult children, but they were not afraid to take a baby at a mature age and never made a distinction between their adopted son and their own children.
After the call, Joyce went to the hospital and attended the resuscitation of her son, all this time without ceasing to pray and ask God for help. She continued to pray even when the doctors officially recognized that he had died.
This photo of John Smith with two of his friends was taken on the same lake shortly before the accident. Together with John, another teenager fell under the ice that time, but he managed to swim to the shore.
John, being in the icy water, was immediately in a state of shock and could not move. He went to the bottom like a stone and quickly lost consciousness. When they pulled him out, he was cold and frozen.
Shot from the movie Breakthrough.
When John's resuscitation was declared useless and his mother was announced to be dead, the doctors left the room to leave the inconsolable mother with her son's body, giving her time to say goodbye to him.
John's palpitations came as a shock to the nurse and doctors as well. But the quick and easy subsequent recovery of the teenager was no less a shock for them. John acted as if he had not been lying for more than 45 minutes without breathing or pulse.
In the next 16 days, he lay in intensive care under a ventilator, but then he was discharged to a regular ward, admitting that his brain activity was not affected at all.
Even the doctors called this case nothing but miraculous and it is not surprising that after a couple of years this story became interested in Hollywood. The script for the film was based on a book by Joyce Smith titled Impossible. The story of how a mother's faith helped to resurrect her child "(" The Impossible: The Miraculous Story of a Mother's Faith and Her Child's Resurrection ").
In the years following his incredible salvation, John Smith spoke many times in church communities in the United States. He also decided to study theology and become a pastor.
From a medical point of view, the miraculous salvation of John Smith is usually explained by the fact that ice water played a big role here, quickly freezing his body. It was because of this that his brain did not suffer.